Process Meronymies?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 91):

The examples of meronymies given above come from the region of 'participant' within the ideation base. It is not clear to what extent, or in what sense, meronymic taxonomies extend beyond that region. We can certainly recognise that processes have phases — 'begin to do, keep doing, stop doing'; but it is not immediately clear that these form a process meronymy analogous to the parts of a participant. Although we might reconstrue he began to dance metaphorically as the beginning of his dance on the model of 'the beginning of the book', this is a metaphorical reification of the process 'dance' and we have to be cautious in interpreting the implications for the congruent process 'dance'. If we probe a little further, we can see that process phase is concerned with the occurrence of a process in time — its temporal unfolding: 'begin to do' means 'begin to be actualised (to occur) as doing in time'. In contrast, participant meronymy is not tied to the existence of a participant in referential space.

Why Meronymic Taxonomies Are Localised Within Hyponymic Taxonomies In SFL

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 90-1):

And this is in fact how we shall model them — as local meronymic taxonomies, applicable to some particular region of the hyponymic taxonomy, and not as one global meronymy superimposed on our taxonomy. There would seem to be far too many discontinuities to create a global meronymy; meronymies tend to occur only where there are contiguous parts of an independent whole. Thus while concrete objects are regularly construed meronymically (with the human body as both a representative example and a model for other meronymies), substances are not; substances are extended through measure ('unit of') rather than through part ('part of'). Similarly, taxonomies tend to be more extended meronymically for concrete regions than for abstract ones (although even things in an abstract region can have parts, e.g. aspect of an idea). Thus there is a generalised set of categories such as part, element, component, aspect; and also a generalised set 'facets' of spatial or temporal orientation, top, bottom, side, front, back, middle, centre; beginning, middle, end. There are more specific variants for parts of particular concrete things, such as facade, roof, wall [of a building]; ceiling, floor, wall [of a room]; slope, peak [of a mountain]; limb, trunk, root, bark [of a tree]; skin, core, pips [of an apple]; crust, crumb [of bread]; preface, epilogue [of a book].

Meronymic Extension (vs Hyponymic Elaboration)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

The ideation base construes phenomena as organic wholes that may take on roles in other kinds of phenomena; but it also deconstrues many such organic wholes into their component parts. When these component parts are phenomena of the same type — participants (e.g., chair: legs, seat, back), figures (e.g., baking a cake: stages in the procedure), this is known as meronymy (or meronymic taxonomy; cf. meros 'part'). We find local taxonomies of this kind, often interlocked with hyponymies; for example, see Figure 2-16. Taxonomies thus embody the two types of expanding relationships we mentioned at the beginning of this section — extension and elaboration. The meronymic type of taxonomy is extension, whereas the hyponymic type is elaboration.

Degrees Of Delicacy In The Lexical Zone

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 89, 90):

Within the lexical zone, we have already referred to the differentiation according to the degrees in delicacy; in particular, the 'basic' degree of delicacy stood out as most highly elaborated. There are also grammatical reactances indicating the taxonomic differentiation between the "basic" degree of delicacy and lower degrees of delicacy, at least in cases where the taxonomic relationship is of a particular kind. For example, the less delicate category may be construed by a mass noun whereas the more delicate, basic degree categories may be construed as count nouns: see Table 2(8).

Wierzbicka (1985: 321-2) identifies this phenomenon and shows that it is not arbitrary. Her explanation is in fact that the relationship between e.g. 'furniture' and 'chair, table' as super-category and subcategory is not the normal 'kind of relationship between e.g. 'bird' and 'swallow, magpie', but rather a grouping of different kinds according to similarity in use:

Thus, supercategones such as bird or tree are 'taxonomic', i.e. they belong to hierarchies of kinds (where each 'kind' is identified on the basis of similarity between its members); supercategories such as crockery, cutlery or kitchenware are not taxonomic — they include things of different kinds, grouped on the basis of contiguity and/ or similarity of function, not on the basis of similarity of form.

We take delicacy to include both types of the relationship of supercategory to subcategory — both the "taxonomic" and the "non-taxonomic" ones. However, it would seem that with the relationship between 'furniture' and 'chair', 'table' &c. we are on the borderline between elaboration and extension.

Semantic Types Are Classified By Grammatically-Construed Criteria And Structural Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87-8):

Semantic types in different taxonomic regions are distinguished according to different criteria; and they have different sets of roles. But the different criteria and sets of roles are construed within the grammar. …

(i) Phenomena within different taxonomic regions are classified according to different kinds of grammatically construed criteria. For example:

(a) perception (figures: subtype of sensing): according to means of perceiving: see (means: eyes)/ hear (means: ears)/ smell (means: nose)/...

(b) transformation (figures: subtype of doing): according to result, e.g. break (result: into pieces)/ melt (result: into liquid state)/ shrink (result: smaller)/ pulverise (result: powder, dust)/...

(c) motion (figures: subtype of doing): according to manner, location, purpose, e.g. fall (location: downwards)/ stroll (purpose: for pleasure)/ flee (purpose: to escape)/ walk (manner: with legs, fairly slowly)/...

(d) higher animals (elements: subtype of conscious thing, at the taxonomic depth of species): according to epithets of age and sex, e.g. cow (sex: female, age: adult), bull (sex: male, age: adult), calf (age: nonadult).

(e) artefacts (elements: a subtype of object): according to material, purpose, e.g. containers (purpose: to contain substances) — barrel (material: wood), basket (material: cane or other woven material), basin (material: metal), bowl (material: earthenware or glass).

(ii) Phenomena within different domains have different grammatically construed structural roles associated with them. For example:

(a) perception: perceiver & phenomenon being perceived;

(b) concrete thing (elements: subtype of object): various epithets, specifically of physical dimensions such as size, shape, weight, colour and age.

(c) weight (elements: subtype of quality): tensor, showing degree of intensity.

The Construal Of Delicacy In Ideational Semantics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 87, 88):

In general, then, we can say that the move in delicacy in the ideation base from 'most general' to 'most delicate' is construed lexicogrammatically as the move from 'grammar' to 'lexis': see Figure 2-15. 

This is of fundamental significance in the construal of semantic categories. The early part of the scale of delicacy is construed in the grammatical 'zone'. This zone provides the resources of grammatical schematisation for construing more delicate categories: those categories are realised lexically but construed according to the systemic parameters of the grammar. For example, the grammar of the nominal group provides a schema for construing various delicate categories of things, by classifying, describing, ordering and other such strategies.

Lexically- vs Grammatically-Construed Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 86):

So far, our discussion of taxonomic elaboration has focussed on those steps in delicacy that tend to be construed lexically in the lexicogrammar. But in the overall meaning base, lexically construed folk and scientific taxonomies do not start at the highest degree of generality in delicacy; they are ordered in delicacy after those systems that are construed grammatically. For example, while 'plant' is the "unique beginner" of a particular folk taxonomy, there are several steps in the construal of things that are more general than this — steps that are constructed in the grammar, in categories such as 'thing', 'conscious/ non-conscious thing', 'countable/ non-countable thing' and the like.

The Move From Folk To Scientific Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 85-6, 7):

The ideation base embodies not only folk taxonomies but also a range of taxonomic models such as those used by experts and by scientists. These are all variants within the overall ideational system. …

The move from folk taxonomies towards scientific ones involves both an increase in steps in delicacy and a change in the criteria used for classification. Wignell, Martin & Eggins (1990) give examples from the classification of roses and of birds of prey. … For birds of prey, they contrast a folk taxonomy with a "birdwatchers' vernacular taxonomy". We superimpose these to give a sense of the difference; see Figure 2-14. 

These examples show the difference in degree of delicacy quite clearly; an increase in delicacy reflects the move in the direction of scientific knowledge. At the same time, the criteria for categorisation also change, from overt criteria that are accessible to the naked eye to covert criteria available only through the application of scientific techniques. The change in taxonomic criteria is very clear from a review of the early taxonomic stage of science in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries: see Slaughter (1986).

The Most Favoured Degree In Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 84):

The most favoured 'band' in delicacy is that of the basic level: it is taxonomically most highly elaborated, it tends to be learnt first by children, and it construes categories with syndromes of usually salient functional and perceptual properties. … In addition, the "basic' degree in delicacy may have a special status in the instantiation of categories in text.In her study of lexicalisation in the pear stories, Downing (1980) found that the basic level was by far the most preferred one; these are the figures for concrete, nonhuman things (p. 106):

Such findings are interesting because they give some indication of what factors to consider in lexicalisation in text generation: a given phenomenon can, in principle, be construed at any point along the scale of delicacy. They are also interesting because they point to the relationship between the system and the instance: from the perspective of the system, we can observe that the basic degree of delicacy is most highly elaborated; from the perspective of the instance, we can observe that it is most frequent. However, we have to allow for considerable variation within a language — in particular, functional or registerial variation within the system according to the context of use, as in the variation between the spoken system of everyday life and the written system of science to which we turn next.

Berlin On The Elaboration Of Labelled Taxonomies

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83-4):

Berlin (1972: 53) characterises the elaboration of labelled taxonomies as follows:

Generic names are fundamental and will occur first. These will be followed by the major life-form names and specific names. At yet a later period, intermediate taxa and varietal taxa will be labelled. Finally the last category to be lexically designated ... of any ethnobotanical lexicon will be the unique beginner. The suggested sequence can be seen diagrammatically as follows:

... no temporal ordering is implied for some categories. Thus no claim is made as to the priority in time of specific names over major life form names. On the other band a claim is made that a language must have encoded at least one major life-form name and one specific name before the appearance of intermediate and varietal named taxa.

The Nature And Degree Of Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83, 85):

Delicacy is a uniform ordering from most general to most delicate; but along this scale, semantic systems differ both in the number of distinctions at any one degree of delicacy and in the overall delicacy that is achieved. There are specific differences associated with particular taxonomic regions. For instance, humans and higher animals are much more highly elaborated than lower animals. But there are also general differences in the nature and degree of taxonomic elaboration associated with different 'bands' in delicacy. Such general taxonomic principles are probably best known for folk-taxonomies in the domains of plants and animals, diseases, and the like (e.g., Berlin, Breedlove & Raven, 1973; Conklin, 1962; Frake, 1962; Slaughter, 1986); these fall within 'element: participant: thing' in the ideation base. The maximum steps in delicacy in a folk taxonomy are kingdom (unique beginner), life form, basic (generic) level, specific level, and varietal level. These steps are by no means always present in every particular taxonomy; and they have different characteristics, summarised in Table 2(6) (for taxonomic examples, see Leech, 1974).

Taxonomic Elaboration

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 83):

Any option (category, semantic type) is thus located in the network relative to other options, first within its own system, and secondly in terms of the location of that system relative to others. For example, 'participant' is one option in the system 'participant/process/circumstance'; and that system is a more delicate elaboration of 'element'. We noted above in reference to Painter's work that the resources of figures of being are deployed in construing taxonomic relations. There is also a generalised set of nominal categories for construing steps in the delicacy hierarchy — e.g. type, kind, class; and some taxonomic regions have specific categories of their own, for example: brand, model, make, issue; genus, species, family.

Construing As Locating In A Network Of 3 Types Of Relations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 82-3):

From the typological point of view, construing experience in terms of categories means locating them somewhere in this network of relations. When we examine this network more closely, we find that there are actually three types of network involved: 

(1) taxonomic in the strict sense (i.e. based on hyponymy, 'a is a kind of x/ x subsumes a, b, c'), 

(2) taxonomic in the extended sense (i.e. based on meronymy, 'd is a part of y/ y has parts d, e, f'), and 

(3) eco-functional (i.e. based on selection, 'g has function m in environment z/ environment z comprises functions m, n, p, and function m may be filled by g, h, j'). 

Of these three, the first provides the global organising principle of elaboration in delicacy; while the third relates paradigmatic organisation to organisation on the syntagmatic axis.

Summary Of The Ontogenetic Perspective On Construing Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 81-2):

We can now sum up what can be learnt about construal from the ontogenetic perspective:

(i) Initially the child construes experience of phenomena that are in, or are brought into, a shared visual field; once constituted into meaning, the experience can be shared, validated and scaffolded dialogically in collaboration with other members of his/her meaning group.

(ii) The earlier experiences are clearly situated by virtue of the child's perception. But once the process of construal has been established, experience can be generalised in the form of semantic classes, and classes of classes; it can be further explored in terms of the semantic system itself; it can be developed vicariously through discourse, and extended to include purely abstract categories.

(iii) Categories are construed in the network of the ideation base in terms of different kinds of relations they enter into:

[1] globally, they are construed in terms of taxonomic elaboration: they form part of a system that is located somewhere in delicacy within the meaning base; 

[2] locally, they may be construed in terms of meronymic extension: they may form part of a local meronymic taxonomy, such as the cat and its body parts; 

[3] transcategorially, they may be construed in terms of the roles they play in some other type of category, such as the cat serving in certain participant roles of figures.

(iv) Categories are thus located within the ideational network. The network defines a multidimensional, elastic space; and locations within this space are not fixed, clearly bounded regions but rather regions with core or focal areas and more peripheral areas that shade into one another.

(v) The ideation base is a resource for construing extra-linguistic experience (such as visual experience). But it is also a semogenic resource for construing itself, since it is built up out of the kinds of relations it itself construes — relations such as intensive ascription. Once critical semantic mass has been built up, new categories can be construed internally within the system of the ideation base.

SFL Theory vs Semantic Primitives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76n):

² The ideational potential for construing such relations of restatement within the ideation base does not at all imply that meaning is analysed by means of decomposition into semantic primitives, 

(i) Semantic types (such as 'balance', 'cat') are not decomposed into their defining glosses within the ideation base; rather, they are construed as standing in an intensive token-value relationship to these glosses, 

(ii) The semantic types are construed internally to the ideation base according to their location in the elaborating taxonomy and can be restated in various ways, 

(iii) The semantic types may also construe extra-linguistic categories of experience; that is, they may have signification outside the ideation base.

Ontogenesis: Construing A Lexicalised Token As A Grammaticalised Value

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 76-7):

Stephen's definition of 'balance' is on a developmental path towards the kinds of definition used in educational and scientific discourse — definitions such as the dictionary definition of 'cat': a cat is a carnivorous mammal long domesticated and kept by man as a pet or for catching rats and mice… . The definition of 'cat' involves a move to a less delicate category ('carnivore' or 'carnivorous mammal', which can be reconstrued as 'mammal that eats meat' …) plus a qualification by a downranked sequence of figures of doing: see Figure 2-12.

In both examples, the definition construes a token-value relation between a fairly delicate semantic type that is lexicalised within the lexicogrammar and a restatement of this type by means of other resources in the ideation base. The restatement draws more on the resources towards the grammatical end of the scale, so that in the definition a lexicalised token is construed as a grammaticalised value.

This entails a shift from construing experience through depth in the experiential taxonomy towards construing experience through expansion in a logical sequence. In the first example, this only involves a downranked sequence of figures; in the second example, this involves a move towards a less delicate category plus a downranked sequence of figures. The first example can actually be interpreted as meaning 'the condition when you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off', showing that the downranked sequence has the class meaning of 'condition'.

Ontogenesis: Construing New Meanings In Terms Of The Semantic System Itself

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75-6):

Also in his fourth year, Stephen begins to extend his deployment of figures of being to include not only the ascriptive mode ('a is a member of x') but also the identifying mode ('y equals x') so that he can explicitly relate meanings in his ideation base in the form of definitions.

For example, in Balance means [[you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't go]], he construes a single class of abstract participant, 'balance', as something defined in terms of a sequence of figures, 'you hold it on your fingers and it doesn't fall off: see Figure 2-11. 

 

He is now in a position to construe new meanings in terms of the semantic system itself; that is, they do not necessarily have to be 'imported' from direct extra-linguistic experience. As Painter points out, this is yet another expansion of his semantic resources preparing him for educational learning in later life where experience is very often vicarious experience, constructed entirely in educational discourse.

Ontogenesis: Providing Causal Evidence For Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 75):

In his fourth year, Stephen begins to provide causal evidence for categorisation, by adding an enhancing figure. The figure that is linked causally specifies attributes that are critical to the construal. For example: Mother refers to Bond airship as 'spaceship balloon' — Stephen: Not a spaceship — an airship — cause a spaceship has bits like this to stand it up; Stephen (pointing at page numbers): That's fifteen because it's got a five; that's fourteen because it's got a four. 

These causal relations are internal (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), i.e. oriented towards the interpersonal act of communication itself ('I know it is an x, because it has feature y') rather than external ('it is an x, because it has feature y'). 

In other words, Stephen is attending to the act of construal itself — 'I construe it as x because of y'. At this stage in the development of Stephen's construal of experience, the construal has become something that is not only shared, but can also be explicitly negotiated and argued about.

Ontogenesis: Construing Categories Externally And Internally

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73-5):

Construing experience as meaning means locating classes such as squares and circles somewhere in the semantic system, both locally as terms in systems and also more globally in the ordering of these systems in delicacy. 

Painter comments: "... through the naming utterances where Stephen was practising signification, he was also necessarily construing the things of his experience into taxonomies". So Stephen also construes the attributes of semantic classes, attributes that will help him sort out the organisation of the semantic system. …

When Stephen's meaning potential has gained critical semantic mass, he begins to construe its own internal organisation explicitly in an effort to sort out taxonomic relations within the system. … Again, the resource for construing 'categories' is the intensive ascriptive figure of being; but now both the Carrier and the Attribute are meanings internal to the semantic system. That is, Stephen construes a taxonomic relationship between e.g. 'seal' and 'animal' by construing them as Carrier + Attribute:

Painter comments: "The importance of this development is that it constitutes a move on Stephen's part from using language to make sense of non-linguistic phenomena to using language to make sense of the valeur relations of the meaning system itself." We can diagram the contrast between these two steps in construing experience as categories of meaning as in Figure 2-10.

Blogger Comments:

Relating this to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, 'visually shared experience' can be understood as the meaning that perceptual (semiotic) systems construe of experience. On the SFL assumption of immanence, domains outside semiotic systems are not meaningful of themselves.

Importantly, the 'external' ascriptive relation here is the subtype 'instantiation' which is a token to type relation (op. cit.:145), so construing categories 'externally' is relating perceptual tokens to semantic types.

'Categorisation' In Ontogenesis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

Painter (1996) provides a key to the understanding of how linguistic resources are deployed in 'categorisation' in language development, drawing on her longitudinal case study of one child, Stephen, between 2 1/2 and 5 years.

The first stage in categorisation is naming individuals as members of classes; instances of the visual experience shared by the young child and his father or mother are ascribed to some general class of experience by means of a figure of being. At about 2 1/2, Stephen produced examples such as: Stephen (examining pattern on a rug): That's a square. What's that? — Mother: That's a circle. Here some perceived phenomenon of experience is brought "into intersubjective focus" by being referred to exophorically — pointing verbally, so to speak, to some feature of the material setting, sometimes accompanied by or replaced by a pointing as a gesture. This phenomenon is construed by Stephen as the Carrier of the figure of being, and is ascribed as a member of some general class of experience, construed as the Attribute of the figure. Stephen is 'importing' experience of instances into the semantic system by ascribing them to general classes in that system. This is an act of naming, and later this act itself gets named by call (see also Halliday, 1977, on calling as an early example of language being turned back on itself).

Children thus build up experience as meaning, in contexts such as the one exemplified above.

Ontogenesis: Generalising From Individual Names To Class Names

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 73):

The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed When children begin to make the transition from proto-language into language (that is, when they begin to develop the system of the mother tongue, typically early in the second year of life), these resources for self-construal are not yet in place. The first things that are construed by naming are individuals; there is as yet no potential for taxonomies of general classes. But children soon take the critical step of generalising across individuals (see e.g. Halliday, 1993a, on generalisation). From a lexicogrammatical point of view, this means that naming has been generalised from individual names ("proper nouns") to class names ("common nouns").

Blogger Comments:

Viewed through the lens of SFL Theory, the shift from naming individuals to naming classes is the shift from assigning token-value relations (identity) to assigning token-type relations (ascription: instantiation); see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 145).

The Semantic System Includes A Theory Of How Meanings Are Construed

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72-3):

One central semantic motif that has emerged from these studies is that of elaboration: both in relational clauses (realising figures of being & having) and in complexes, especially nominal ones (the traditional notion of apposition, realising sequences of participants). Here elaboration is at work e.g. in 'distilling' new meanings over extended passages. That is, the semantic system includes a theory of how meanings are construed; and this theory is itself a resource for construing new meanings. Thus when a young child says cats also aren't people, he is using a type of figure of being & having to construe a taxonomic relationship in the ideation base, so that the membership of 'cats' (construed as Carrier) in the class of 'people' (construed as Attribute) can be probed, in this case to 'outclassify' cats from the class of people. Figures of being & having of the intensive and ascriptive kind thus construe, among other things, the taxonomic relation among classes or types in the semantic system.

The ideation base is thus a resource both for construing experience and for construing its own construal of experience. It has the potential for expanding itself precisely because it includes a theory of how meanings are construed

The Systemic-Functional Position On Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72):

From a systemic-functional point of view, the intellectual context was rather different. Systemic-functional theory was not oriented towards philosophy and logic, and the Aristotelian conception of a category did not figure as a traditional frame of reference that therefore had to be rejected. Already at the outset of the theoretical work that was to become systemic-functional theory, a major descriptive focus was on intonation (see e.g. Halliday, 1963a, b, 1967), a domain that clearly cannot be construed in Aristotelian terms; and the notion of cline was part of the theory already in the first major statement (see Halliday, 1961). Further, the system was conceived of as a probabilistic one even in proto-systemic work (see e.g. Halliday, 1956).

Systemic-functional work on 'categorisation' has thus not engaged with the philosophical tradition; nor has it tended to proceed by experimental methods. Rather, it has been concerned with how meaning is construed in naturally occurring text, e.g. in child language studies (Halliday, 1975 onwards; Painter, 1996) and in factual writing (e.g. Halliday & Martin, 1993; Harvey, in prep.). Here one of the questions has been what resources are available in the semantic system for construing new meanings — for 'category development', both in the ontogenetic time frame and in the logogenetic time frame.

The Cognitive Linguistic Position On Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 72):

Categorisation has received much attention in recent work in linguistics, especially within the framework of cognitive science. The received tradition was the classical or Aristotelian conception of a category as a type definable in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions — its essential characteristics rather than its accidental ones. One central aim of cognitively oriented linguists has been to show that the Aristotelian conception does not apply to semantic categories, which have to be re-theorised in terms of prototype theory. The initial impetus came from a series of well-known experiments in categorisation by E. Rosch and by Labov (1973) and from Berlin & Kay's (1969) study of colour terms across languages; Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances had provided an earlier insight within a philosophical frame of reference (cf. Ellis, 1993). Since there are now a number of summaries of these positions, and of the critique of the Aristotelian conception (e.g. Lakoff, 1987; Taylor, 1989), we will not review the discussion here.

The Relationship Between Typological And Topological Perspectives

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 70-1):

What is the relationship between these two perspectives on meaning? So far in work on semantics only the typological perspective has been able to be realised in a formal system; the power of the topological perspective still derives largely from the metaphor of space within theories of meaning. For present purposes, we can say that the topological organisation construes a semantic space, creating the correspondences shown in Table 2(4).

Both perspectives are valuable. The typological perspective allows us to gain insight into the organisation of meaning through the network, both as theoretical metaphor and as a system of formal representation. The topological perspective gives us complementary benefits — in the first instance, the general notion of a multidimensional elastic space. We have indicated in the rightmost column some implications that derive from adopting the topological perspective. The general motif here is that of indeterminacy. For example, we can show how regions of meaning overlap (e.g. doing & happening overlapping with sensing in an area of 'sensing as activity'). We will use informal topological diagrams at various points in our discussion to bring out this central feature of the ideational system.

The last row in the table above also represents indeterminacy, but this is indeterminacy of a particular kind, relating to the probabilistic nature of the semantic system. The types in the semantic system are instantiated according to probability values; these are manifested as relative frequencies in text. The equivalent in the spatial interpretation of meaning would be curvature or chreodisation. Chreodisation embodies time and represents the change of systemic probabilities over time (see e.g. Waddington, 1977, Sheldrake, 1988: Ch. 6, for discussion).

Blogger Comments:

Waddington modelled biological development as unfolding in an abstract space in which there were canals (curvatures) that represented the necessary path of development ('chreode'), which, crucially, the process of development could return to after being perturbed. Here Halliday & Matthiessen are only concerned with using space curvature as a means of representing probability differences topologically.

Topology Example: Content Plane

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 69, 71):

We can now consider a comparable example from the content plane of language — from the ideation base. In our description of sequences, we recognised two simultaneous systems: the relative status of the figures ('equal/ unequal') and the kind of relationship between them ('projecting/ expanding'). This account constitutes the typological perspective on this region of the ideation base; it is mapped onto the topological perspective in Figure 2-9. Sequences are thus construed as a two-dimensional region within the overall semantic space. The correspondences are the same as those already noted for the vowel space. 

Topology Example: Expression Plane

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 69, 70):

We shall relate typology and topology to one another as complementary perspectives on meaning, and then we shall say a few words about the value of keeping the topological perspective in view. Let us start with our analogy from the expression plane: a vowel system can be construed both typologically as a set of systems, e.g. two systems 'front/ back' & 'open/ closed' defining four vowel values, and topologically as a two-dimensional space with four focal (core, cardinal vowel) locations. These two perspectives are related to one another in Figure 2-8. 

Each system in the typology corresponds to a dimension in the topology. We can thus say that the two simultaneous systems correspond to a two-dimensional space. The systemic terms, or values, correspond to regions within the vowel space along one of its dimensions; an intersection of two systemic terms such as 'front* & 'open' is a region located along two dimensions. If we add further systems in the typology, e.g. rounding ('rounded/ unrounded'), nasality ('nasal/ non-nasal') and tongue root position ('neutral position/ advanced position'), these will correspond to further dimensions in the vowel space. With tongue root position we are still maintaining a reasonably congruent relationship between our representation of the vowel space and the oral cavity in which vowels are articulated, since advanced tongue root position is simply a global shift of the whole space; but with nasality we are beginning to use our representation more metaphorically, since the control of airflow through the nose is not a feature of the oral cavity.

Typological And Topological Perspectives On The Organisation Of Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68-9):

So far we have sketched the most general organisation of the ideation base as a typology of semantic types or classes. This is one theoretical perspective on the organisation — a perspective realised in certain conventional systems of representation, such as the system network. It allows us to bring out quite clearly the global organisation of the ideation base as a resource for construing experience; and it also allows us to show how the semantic types in this global organisation are interrelated, as in the case of participants filling Actor and Goal rôles in figures of doing. 

At the same time, there is another theoretical perspective on the organisation of meaning — the topological perspective. Here meaning is construed in terms of a spatial metaphor: we can view the ideation base as an elastic, multidimensional semantic space. This metaphor is already familiar in discussions of meaning; we find it in Trier's notion of semantic fields, in the distinction between core meanings and more peripheral meanings, in specifications of semantic distance, and so on.

The notion of a vowel space (with its 'cardinal vowels') provides a familiar analogy. As a material construction, it is limited to the three dimensions of physical space; but as a physiological space, it accommodates variation along a number of dimensions, and brings an elasticity to the expression plane that is in some extent analogous to the metaphorical elasticity that we are ascribing to the plane of the content.

Domains Of Categorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Naturally our categorisation tends to be oriented towards phenomena on a particular scale, those that lie within the bandwidth of those phenomena which are most readily accessible to our senses and which we engage with in day to day existence. This is the realm which impinges most closely on our physical, biological and social being; the semantic system has evolved with this as its primary semogenic environment. Lying beyond this are the micro- and the macro-worlds which are accessible to us only by instrument and by inference. 

It is a powerful demonstration of the potential of the semantic system that it readily fashions new meanings that model these experientially remote domains. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that it has had to be equally resourceful in modelling the ongoing changes in our social environment, where both the overall social order and our local interpersonal networks are constantly being modified and realigned.

Categorising Is A Creative Act

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 68):

Categorisation is often thought of as a process of classifying together phenomena that are inherently alike, the classes being as it were given to us by the nature of the experience itself. But this is not what really happens. Categorising is a creative act: it transforms our experience into meaning, and this means imposing a categorical order rather than putting labels on an order that is already there. As Ellis has expressed it, categorisation consists in grouping together sets of phenomena that are essentially not alike (1993: Ch. 3). There would be indefinitely many ways of construing analogies among different elements in the total flux of experience; what our semantic resources enable us to do is to construe those analogies which yield categories resonating with what as a species, and as members of a particular culture, we have found to carry material and symbolic value.

Semantic Types Are Categories To Which Phenomenological Instances Are Ascribed

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 66):

We have presented an initial sketch of the ideation base as a resource for construing our experience of the world around us and inside us. The focus of this sketch was the most general system of semantic types such as 'figure', 'being-&-having', 'participant', 'conscious being'. These semantic types are categories to which phenomenological instances are ascribed; they thus embody the fundamental principle of generalising across individual phenomenological variation. And they are located somewhere in delicacy between the most general type, the all-inclusive class of 'phenomenon', and the most delicate types we can recognise as being codified lexically in English.

General Options For Sequence, Figure And Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 65, 67):

Plate 10 below shows the lattice as described up to this point, incorporating all the categories introduced above (but still omitting those embodying any grammatical metaphor).

Element: Process

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 64-5):

Processes serve in the most central or nuclear rôle in a figure; they embody the temporal properties of a figure unfolding in time: see Plate 9. Other than metaphorical processes, the process element is either polar (positive/negative) or modal (some intermediate degree between positive and negative); it may embody phase, or aspect; and it will refer to past, present or future time. Polarity and modality derive from the interpersonal perspective on the process.

Element: Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 63-4):

Circumstances fill circumstantial rôles in figures. We can recognise two simultaneous distinctions; see Plate 8. One concerns the type of circumstantial relation construed; the primary contrast is between circumstances of projection and circumstances of expansion and within the latter we distinguish those of elaboration, extension and enhancement The other concerns the experiential complexity of the circumstance; circumstances are either 'simple' or 'macro', the former being more truly elemental while the latter are more like figures. …

Among simple circumstances, the most usual are those of time, place, manner-quality and intensity, all of which are circumstances of enhancement. Examples: [skies will be partly cloudy] today (locative: time), increasingly (manner: intensity), widespread (locative: place), easily, carefully (manner: quality).

Macro circumstances are those which are made up of a special type of figure having another participant inside it, for example (circumstances of enhancement): (locative: place [abstract]) in the low to mid 60s, (locative: place) from the northeast, (manner: quality) at 15 to 25 m.p.h., (locative: place) throughout the northern Rockies, (locative: place) in a casserole, (locative: place) in a hot oven, (extent: duration) for 10-15 minutes, (manner: means) with a clean absorbent cloth.

Element: Participant: Simple Quality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 62-3):

Qualities characterise things along various parameters, as in green cabbage : red cabbage: see Plate 7.

Again, a number of simple qualities are metaphorical; of the remainder, the "ordinary" qualities, one subtype is qualities of projection and the other is qualities of expansion. (As we will show in subsequent chapters, the categories of projection and expansion are very prevalent in the organisation of the ideation base.)

Element: Participant: Simple Thing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 60-1):

Some 'simple things' are metaphorical; the remainder are referred to as 'ordinary', and these are either conscious or non-conscious (this is the distinction that is actually made in the semantic system, not animate/inanimate or human/non-human): see Plate 6.

Non-conscious ordinary things are distinguished along more than one dimension, but the categorisation given here can be taken as primary, in the sense that it is the one that seems to have the clearest reactances in the grammar.

Blogger Comments:

When we construe any organism as being able to see, for example, we are construing it as conscious, since perception is a type of mental process.

Element: Participant

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 59-60):

Participant rôles in figures are filled by elements of the type 'participant'; they are phenomena capable of taking on a participant rôle in a process configuration, e.g. bringing it about or being affected by it. They are further differentiated according to two parameters: see Plate 5. Macro-participants are all metaphorical and will be left out of consideration for the time being. Simple participants may be things or qualities.

Types Of Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 58-9):

As we have seen, elements fill the roles of figures. Participant roles are filled by participants (things or qualities), circumstance roles by circumstances (times, places, causes, etc.), and the process role by a process. There are correlations here between the taxonomy of configurational phenomena and that of simple phenomena … . 

The elements of a figure are of three kinds:

(i) the process itself (action/event, process of consciousness, or relation),
(ii) a participant in that process, or
(iii) a circumstantial element or circumstance. …

As already noted above, processes are realised by verbal groups, participants by nominal groups, and circumstances by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases. In addition to the three types of element that serve in figures, there is one further type of element — the relator: see Plate 4. Relators serve to construe logico-semantic relations of expansion between figures in a sequence; they are realised by conjunction groups.

The Rôle Restrictions For Sensing, Saying And Doing Summarised

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 57-8):

The rôle restrictions for sensing, saying, and doing are summarised in Table 2(1) below.

These rôle restrictions represent a kind of metaphysics of English transitivity. For example, according to English, ideas and locutions cannot act on things, but there is no general restriction on what kinds of things may act on other things. Not only persons, but also inanimate things and abstractions may kill people (a figure of doing): the rifleman/the rock/his stupidity killed cousin Henry. 

In contrast, if we had built our model according to the demands of the transitivity grammar of Navajo, we would have had to rank things in terms of their capacity to act upon other things; e.g., an inanimate cannot act upon an animate thing (Witherspoon, 1977).

Subtypes Of Figures And Participant Role Value Restrictions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 57-8):

As already mentioned, there is a typology of figures based largely on the nature of the particular types of the process, participant, and circumstance roles; the most general part of this is shown in Figure 2-6.

 

Each type of figure has its own set of more delicately specified roles with particular value restrictions. For example, figures of doing have an Actor, which in turn is a participant (rather than some other kind of phenomenon). (Notice that the specification of the filler of the Phenomenon role in a sensing figure is more general than 'participant' — any type of phenomenon can be sensed.)

Grammatical Realisations Of Process, Participant And Circumstance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 54-5):

Grammatically, the nuclear process, its participants, and its circumstances are typically represented as constituents in the transitivity structure of a clause: see Figure 2-3.

The Principle Of Organisation Of A Figure (vs Sequence)

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 53-4):

The principle of organisation of a figure is different from that of a sequence. As we have seen, a sequence is constructed by interdependency relations of expansion and projection. In contrast, a figure is constructed as an organic configuration of parts. Each part stands in a specific relation to the figure as a whole. The parts of a given configuration are (i) a nuclear process, (ii) one to three participants of different kinds taking part in the process, and (iii) up to around seven circumstances of different kinds associated with it.

Participants are inherent in the process; they bring about its occurrence or mediate it. There are a number of specific ways in which a participant may take part in a process; it may act out the process, it may sense it, it may receive it, it may be affected by it, it may say it, and so on. The different configurations of participants are the bases for a typology of process types. The distinction between participants and circumstances is a cline rather than a sharp division, but it is semantically quite significant.

Circumstances are typically less closely associated with the process and are usually not inherent in it. They specify the spatial or temporal location of the process, its extent in space or time (distance or duration), its cause, the manner of its occurrence, and so on.

Types Of Figure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 52-3):

A figure is a representation of experience in the form of a configuration, consisting of a process, participants taking pan in this process and associated circumstances. There are, of course, indefinitely many kinds of process in the non-semiotic world; but these are construed semiotically, according to the way in which they configure participants, into a small number of process types — being, doing, sensing, and saying. The first three of these have clearly defined subcategories: see Plate 3.

Then, each figure may be either projected (by another figure, or in some other way) or else not; and if projected, it may be an idea or locution or [fact] …

Types Of Sequence

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 50-1):

A sequence is a series of related figures. Consequently, sequences are differentiated according to the kinds of relations figures can enter into — temporal (x happened, then y happened, etc.), causal (x happened, so y happened, etc.), and so on; in the most general terms, the relations yield the following type of sequence: see Plate 2.

In any pair of figures related in sequence, one figure may (i) expand the other, by reiterating it, adding to it or qualifying it; or (ii) project (report, quote) the other by saying it or thinking it. In either case, the two may be either equal or unequal in status, or semantic weight. … Sequences are organised by interdependence relations and they are indefinitely expandable.

The Congruent Realisation Of Ideational Semantics In Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48, 49):

While figures are said to consist of elements and sequences are said to consist of figures, the 'consist-of' relation is not the same: elements are constituent parts of figures, functioning in different roles; but figures form sequences through interdependency relations. … The typical representation of sequences, figures and elements in the grammar is as in Figure 2-1.

Ideational Semantics: The Phenomena Of Human Experience As Three Orders Of Complexity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 48, 49):

A phenomenon is the most general experiential category — anything that can be construed as part of human experience. The phenomena of experience are of three orders of complexity: elementary (a single element), configurational (configuration of elements, i.e. a figure) and complex (a complex of figures, i.e. a sequence) — see Plate 1.

Four Representational Challenges For SFL Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 45):

We shall mention four such challenges briefly here.

(i) The first representational challenge is the need to handle the dimension of instantiation.  

As a process, instantiation can be represented as involving traversal of the system network and activation of realisation statements. The instance is thus a set of features (semantic types) selected, with associated realisational specifications — an instantial pattern over the semantic potential. 

However, instantiation also defines a scale between the potential and the instance, with intermediate patterns of instantiation. We will introduce these later as register-specific domain models. Such patterns of instantiation will need to be represented: perhaps as systemic probabilities, or as domain-partitions within the overall ideation base.

(ii) The second representational challenge is the need to model how the overall ideation base is expanded by grammatical metaphor. It must be shown how metaphor adds junctional types to the ordinary types …

(iii) The third representational challenge comes from outside the account of the ideation base itself: the ideation base has to be related to the other metafunctional modes of meaning, the interaction base and the text base. The interaction base will include alternative 'projections' of the ideation base to account for the relationship between speaker and addressee. …

(iv) The fourth representational challenge concerns the non-discreteness of the various systems that construe semantic space. The semantic types represented by the features of systems in the system network do not constitute discrete Aristotelian categories; they are values on semantic clines — core regions, to use the metaphor of semantic space. We can bring this out by adopting a topological view on meaning; we can also explore the possibility of interpreting features as names of fuzzy sets.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 44):

Figure 1-12 shows an example of a systemic representation, with the graphic conventions for the system network. Preselection is shown by means of a pointer leading from the function (role) being restricted to the feature that it is restricted to.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: Types Of Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 43-4):

The general form of a realisation statement is 'realisation operator + one or more realisation operands', as in 'insert Senser' and 'conflate Medium and Senser'. The operators used to specify functional structuring are insert, conflate, and preselect. The first operand is always a semantic function (role); additional operands may be functions or features. The realisation statements we will make use of in our representation of ideation base information are as follows:

(1) Presence of functions in the structure: the presence of a function in a function structure is specified by inserting the function into the structure; the operation of insertion is symbolised by '+'; e.g. +Actor, +Senser, etc.

(2) Conflation of one function with another: one function from one perspective is conflated with a function from another perspective — they are identified with one another. Conflation is symbolised by '/'; for example, Medium/Senser means that Medium (ergative perspective) and Senser (transitive perspective) apply to the same element of a figure.

(3) Restriction on the type of phenomenon that can serve a particular function: this is stated by preselecting one or more features from the unit serving that function; preselection is symbolised by ':', e.g. Senser: conscious being, which means that the participant serving as Senser is restricted to the type 'conscious being'. (Since 'conscious being' is more delicate than 'participant', the fact that a participant serves as Senser can be inferred from the statement 'Senser conscious being'. In general, it is only necessary to state the most delicate or specific restriction along any subsumption path in the system network.)

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: The Realisation Statement

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 42-3):

If we use systemic representation to encode information in the ideation base, we factor out the logic of subsumption and alternatives from the syntagmatic realisation: this logic is represented in the system network. If each feature is interpreted as a type, this gives us a lattice of types. In European structuralist terms, the network is a representation of the paradigmatic organisation of a linguistic system. However, it is also necessary to show how feature choices are realised structurally; i.e., what are the structural properties of the types. This is the province of the realisation statement.

A realisation statement is a minimal specification of a piece of structure or configuration of roles presented in a paradigmatic context; it is always associated with a particular systemic feature. For instance, the realisation statement '+ Senser' occurs in the context of 'sensing' in the system of figures; it is the syntagmatic realisation of that feature: a figure of sensing is a configuration of roles one of which is Senser.

Representation Stratum Of SFL Metalanguage: The System Network

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 41-2):

Systemic representations include (i) system networks and (ii) realisation statements.

(i) A system network is an acyclic directed graph, consisting of systems partially ordered in delicacy. Each system constitutes a choice (alternation, opposition) between two or more terms. These terms are represented by features, and a system as a whole is a Boolean combination of features:

(1) It has an entry condition, the condition under which the systemic choice is available. The entry condition may be a single feature or a complex of features, conjunct and/ or disjunct. These features must serve as terms in other systems.

(2) It has a set of terms, the options that are available given the entry condition. The terms are represented by features, which are related by exclusive disjunction. Collectively, a set of related systems form a system network (since features in the entry conditions to systems must be terms in other systems).

Metalanguage: Representation Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 33-4):

The theoretical model makes considerable demands on the representational system or systems in which it is realised. Such a system must be able to handle the axial differentiation of the meaning base so that it represents not only structural configurations but also variation in delicacy, the indeterminacy between options in meaning, the move in instantiation from potential to instance, and other theoretical specifications. …

As we have already noted, the representational semiotic may also be language itself — the theory may be represented discursively in the register(s) of linguistics. In this case, the relationship between theory and language is similar to … a relationship where theory might be construed as a connotative semiotic (in Hjelmslev's, 1943, conception: a semiotic system whose expression plane is a semiotic system) …

Finally, the representational semiotic may also be a diagrammatic one — e.g. network graphs, tree diagrams, our circle diagrams. With such graphic representation, it is important to ask (i) if the information represented graphically can be restated in some other form of representation and (ii) if its realisational relationship with respect to theory is clear. There is a certain danger that the graphic representation is simply assumed to be natural and transparent even though it depends as much on semiotic conventions as any other system. Our own experience with circle diagrams is that, unless the representational convention has been made explicit, readers favour certain types of meaning: the circles are interpreted in terms of 'extension' rather than in terms of 'elaboration' — which is to say, they are read in constituency terms rather than in realisational terms. In any case, diagrams will only serve us as 'visualisations' as long as they construe a metaphor of abstract space at the theoretical stratum.

Metalanguage: Theoretical Construal Stratum

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 32-3):

Thus any account of the ideation base has to be metalinguistically stratified It has to be constructed as a theoretical model out of the resources the theory provides and according to the constraints imposed by these resources. From a systemic-functional point of view, this means that the ideation base is construed as a multidimensional, elastic semantic space. This space is organised as a meaning potential, with an extensive system of semantic alternatives; these alternatives are ordered in delicacy. Each set of alternatives is a cline in semantic space rather than a set of discrete categories, and any alternative may be constituted structurally as a configuration of semantic roles. The meaning potential is thus differentiated axially into (i) systems of options in meaning and (ii) structural configurations of roles by which these options are constituted.

The meaning potential itself is one pole on the dimension of instantiation: it is instantiated in the unfolding of text, with patterns of typical instantiation (specific domains of meaning) lying somewhere in between the potential and the instance. At the same time, this overall ideation base can be expanded by various semogenic strategies, among which we are foregrounding that of grammatical metaphor.

The Stratification Of Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Metalanguage has the same basic properties as any semiotic system. This means that it is stratified. It construes language in abstract theoretical terms; but this construal is in turn realised as some form of representation — either language itself, in discursive constructions of theory, or some form of designed semiotic (system networks, constituency rules, conceptual networks, logical formulae, and so on).

Metalanguage

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

Johnston's insight into the power of representation embodied in Sign is central also to the general challenge of representation in metalanguage. We noted above that the semantics/ lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a 'realisation' (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/ lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a 'realisation' of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language. This system is itself a semiotic one — a metalanguage; in Firth's more everyday terms, it is language turned back on itself. So whereas a language is (from an ideational point of view) a resource for construing our experience of the world, a metalanguage is a resource for construing our experience of language.

Blogger Comments:

Here Matthiessen confuses 'a realisation' with 'a construal' (an abstract construction). To be clear, a realisation is the Token of an identifying relation; that is, it is less abstract than the Value it signifies. On the other hand, a construal is an intellectual construction that is the Value of an identifying relation; that is, it is more abstract than the Token that signifies it. The first two sentences above can be made consistent with the final sentence above by re-expressing them as:

We noted above that the semantics/ lexicogrammar of natural language is itself a 'construal' (an abstract construction) of daily experience. Likewise, the system we use to explore the semantics/ lexicogrammar — our theory of semantics and our grammatics — is a 'construal' of that part of daily experience that is constituted by semantics and lexicogrammar; that is, it is an abstract construction of language.

Language is a construal of daily experience, not a realisation of it.

The Parallelism Of The Semantics And Spatial Expression Of Sign Languages

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

This parallelism is even more foregrounded where the modality of expression is spatial, as in the Sign Languages of deaf communities (see Johnston, 1989; 1992 on AUSLAN). Here the domain of expression is a 4-dimensional signing space-time in a field of perception shared by signer and addressee (though clearly perceived from different angles). The spatial orientation and the shared perception increase the potential for iconicity in the expression; Johnston (1992) points out: "Despite an oral-aural language being suited to iconically encode sounds, the fact that our experience as a whole is visual, temporal and spatial means that a language which has itself visual and temporal resources for representation has greater means than an auditory one to map onto itself those very visual and spatial qualities of the world it wishes to represent."

The Parallelism Of Semantics And Phonology

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 30):

The phonological representations are still abstract; they have to be manifested in bodily movements — in the ongoing movement of the parameters of the articulatory system. The sound system thus categorises bodily processes; and in this respect, it is similar to the semantic system: both are ways of construing human experience. Meaning is thus represented by modes of organisation that are similar to its own.

The Relation Between Content And Expression

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 29-30):

Grammatical representations are in turn represented in linguistic expressions — prototypically, in sounding. Here the relationship is more complex than it is between semantics and grammar, in that it is both natural and conventional. 

In the interpersonal and textual domains of content, it is often natural: thus interpersonal content tends to be represented prosodically by movements or variant levels in pitch, and textual content tends to be represented by prominence achieved phonologically (e.g. by the major pitch movement in an intonation contour) or sequentially (e.g. by using distance from initial position in the clause as a scale of prominence). 

In the ideational domain, the representation is usually conventional; but, even here there is a relationship of analogy, where we find in the sounding modes of organisation similar to those of wording (and therefore of meaning). 

Systemically, we find that the system construes a phonetic space — notably the vowel space; and that this provides a model for semantic space. 

Structurally, we find that sound is structured both as chains of segments (e.g. rhythmic units interpreted as syllable complexes) and as configurations of segmental constituents (e.g. syllables interpreted as configurations of phonemes).

Blogger Comments:

This is clearly Matthiessen, rather than Halliday. For Halliday, the natural relation between semantics and grammar is between meaning (e.g. participant) and grammatical form (e.g. nominal group). To be consistent with Halliday's formulation, the relation between grammar and phonology is the conventional relation between grammatical form (clause, group, etc.) and phonology (tone group, foot, etc.), where relations can not be said to be natural. (If the relations were natural, the phonological expressions of all languages would considerably more similar than they are.)

However, Matthiessen switches track in this exposition from the relation between the grammatical stratum and the phonological stratum to the relation between the content plane and the expression plane, where relations between interpersonal and textual meanings and prosodic phonology can be said to be natural.